One of our frequently banned users is making a variety of legal and financial accusations that I wanted to respond to early and firmly lest any of these things take root in any way shape or form as reflective of reality in any way.

1. First, the Wikimedia Foundation is currently in full compliance and more with all legal requirements for filings, etc. It is my intention that we remain so, and that indeed, we are proactive about doing whatever is necessary to go above and beyond what is required of us in terms of organizational transparency, etc.

I am always eager to hear suggestions for improvement in this regard.

2. Second, there are no plans of any kind to release a 'for-profit' version of the Wikipedia, for the separate benefit of me or Bomis or any other company that I own, control, work for, etc. We *will* be working to release Wikipedia on CD-ROM, in paper format, etc., but these will be projects *of the foundation*, carried out with perfect consistency with our nonprofit mission.

Such efforts will necessarily and properly involve the work of for-profit publishers, but of course any contracts entered into will be to the benefit of the Wikimedia Foundation.

3. There are no current plans for salaries for anyone. In the future, I do intend that as we grow, we will become a large organization patterned after the National Geographic Society, the International Red Cross, and so on. This will eventually necessitate employees, etc. But for now, any suggestion that I am personally trying to get money from Wikipedia is beyond ludicrous.

It is commonly thought that I'm a wealthy person, but I'm not really. I'm a very committed person who drives a 4 year old Hyundai and lives in an ordinary middle-class American home in an ordinary neighborhood, while spending far more in the last 5 years on my dream of a free encyclopedia than I have on my own salary, none of which, of course, is derived from Wikipedia in any way.

I do this because it matters to me. There are lots of ways to spend money in life, some frivolous, some meaningful. To me, doing something meaningful is the best reward.

4. As of June 1, 2004, I am resigning as CEO of Bomis, and my partner Tim Shell will take over that role. This is primarily to reflect the reality of the situation, which is that I spend virtually all my time on Wikipedia and non-Bomis work. But it is also in part to further emphasize and underscore the fact that the two are unrelated. Bomis's ongoing provision of free hosting for the Wikimedia Foundation as a gesture of appreciation of "giving back" to the free software community whose software has helped us to do so much is not going to change. But that ongoing gift is the only relationship between Bomis and Wikipedia, period.

5. One troll has suggested that the Wikimedia Foundation needs to disclose something about it's relationship to Bomis. This is a classic propaganda technique: to demand the disclosure of some shadowy secrets, with ominous overtones, when there is actually nothing to disclose. I am happy to answer any questions that anyone has about it, but there's not much to say.

While I was a futures and options trader, I founded Bomis partly as a sideline hobby. It was eventually successful enough for me to retire from trading and do it full time. The company rode through the dot-com boom with good times and bad, and has always prospered enough to provide me with a decent living.

I eventually became consumed with the passion to create a free and freely licensed encyclopedia, and started to spend money on it. In the early days, I thought of it as a possible business venture like RedHat. Nupedia was an expensive failure, Wikipedia was a big success.

But through that process, it became apparent that in order for Wikipedia to achieve it's full potential it needed to be owned by a non-profit organization. I promised then to give it all away to the non-profit organization, and I did. I did so fully and completely and with no regrets. My reward will be a Nobel Peace Prize, ha ha.

Why has Bomis funded Wikipedia? Because my partners in Bomis shared my vision and let me do it. Bomis had servers, technical employees, etc., and was the original owner of Nupedia/Wikipedia. The transition was natural and spontaneous, and that's where things are today.

6. I have said before that although there are no plans for it at the current time, and no need for it, it would please me greatly to have the Wikimedia Foundation grow into a large enough organization that it would be sensible for me to accept a salary for running it. If and when that time comes, of course my compensation will be decided according to the standard practices for charitable organizations, i.e. through a vote of the other members of the Board of Directors, and in accordance with the advice of an independent outside compensation agency.

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In short, if anyone has *any* questions or concerns about legal or financial matters, I ask you to please write to me privately and express those concerns openly and honestly, so that I can resolve anything of this sort to everyone's satisfaction. If, after you've talked with me privately, you find that you have any remaining issues that you don't feel I've addressed, then by all means I encourage you to go public with your complaints.

That's my biggest problem, really, with what this troll is doing. He's issuing a lot of lies (anonymously of course) and insinuations, attempting to make a public stink, rather than honestly and simply raising the issues with me in an appropriate manner. I don't actually fear any actual legal action, because in order to file a legal action, he or she would have to reveal his or her true identity, which would then enable us to finally take legal action to permanently ban them from the website, as well as providing an opportunity for me to file a libel claim against him.

Anyhow, really, I wanted to say all this because I want you you all to know my keen interest in openness, transparency, fairness, etc. I want to do whatever I need to do to make sure that the Wikimedia Foundation is looked to as a shining example of how a nonprofit should be run, with tight attention paid to expenses, good stewardship of donor money, etc.

--Jimbo